On Saturday, 24 November 2018 19:32:06 UTC, ARW wrote:
On 23/11/2018 07:04, harry wrote:
On Friday, 23 November 2018 01:27:56 UTC, tabby wrote:
On Thursday, 22 November 2018 21:40:58 UTC, Robin wrote:
On 22/11/2018 19:14, ARW wrote:


OK so not DIY but some here do find such info interesting.

I am doing an EICR on a block of 38 rented flats all owned by the same
company. One and two bed flats with just a single mains powered smoke in
the hallway (as per regs when they were built in 1994)

Out of the 16 I have tested 8 of them have either had the MCB to the
smokes turned off and the battery removed, the mains disconnected at the
smoke and the battery removed or the smoke heads have been removed.


I accept that the tenants have probably done some of this DIY themselves
to save buying a new battery.

However the most disturbing one is a flat that a tenant moved into 4
weeks ago. The mains had been disconnected from the smoke, taped up and
shoved into the ceiling as well as the battery having been removed.
Almost certainly like that when she moved in 4 weeks ago.


It's a sad reflection on both landlord and tenants. I can only hope the
EICR is for a new owner/agent who wants to do better and not just 'cos
the insurer wants one.


I suspect it's one of those systems that false alarms too frequently for the tenants to tolerate it. There are such systems out there. Last one I saw they had difficulty accessing the 'turn it off' function too. People get seriously fed up & detectors get disabled.

The companies that put systems in don't always do it adequately in this respect, leaving an LL that doesn't know how to solve it. Some systems are genuinely not livable with.

I'd ask the tenants about it and maybe flag this as a likely explanation, recommending it be made livable.


NT

Frequent false alarms lead to people ignoring them too.
Years ago ISTR an incident where people in a tower block ignored the fire alarm for this reason, it was a real fire and someone was killed.


The fire alarm went off on Monday when I was changing an emergency light
at a hotel. Everyone ignored it as they thought it was me that had set
the alarm off!!!!!!

Not one person (other than me) looked at the fire panel. Burnt toast in
the staff room was the cause.

which indicates that they've stopped taking the system's (many false) alarms seriously.